It has been required in recent years to shorten the processing time of image formation processing of silver halide photographic materials. However, if the processing time is shortened, sufficient time required for the decolorization reaction of the dyes, sensitizing dyes or desensitizing dyes contained in photographic materials, or sufficient time for them to be eluted from the photographic materials cannot be secured. As a result of this, a problem arises such that a residual color becomes conspicuous due to the residue of these dyes, sensitizing dyes or desensitizing dyes.
The improvement of processing solutions for reducing a residual color has been studied. The following methods as disclosed in Research Disclosure, Vol. 207, No. 20733 (July, 1981) are known methods to cope with this problem, for example, (a) a method of adding a water-soluble stilbene compound, a nonionic surfactant, or a mixture of them, to a developing solution, (b) a method of destroying dyes by processing photographic elements after bleaching and fixing with an oxidizing agent, and (c) a method of using a persulfuric acid bleaching bath as a bleaching bath. However, conspicuous improvement in residual colors cannot be achieved by these methods because these are not to positively accelerate the elution of sensitizing dyes and dyes.
On the other hand, the introduction of sulfonic acid groups to dyes or dyestuffs has been conventionally conducted to improve the water solubility of dyes or sensitizing dyes for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of elution, and the dyes having acylsulfonamido groups as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,290,676, and the dyes having hydrophilic aromatic groups as disclosed in EP-A-599381, EP-A-599382, EP-A-599383 and EP-A-599384 are proposed in recent years.
However, the syntheses of these dyes are not necessarily easy. Even if residual colors can be effectively improved by these methods, there still exists a problem such that various performances imposed on the dyes and the sensitizing dyes such as sensitivity, spectral characteristics, aggregation property and adsorbability to silver halide grains cannot often be satisfied. Therefore, other means for improving residual colors have been desired.